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Chocolate Coated Bitterness


Just this week a friend and I were laughing on the phone about my inability to “stand up for myself”. She made a comment on how sweet I was but, as an aside, said, “What if there is actually a bitter person inside of you that just has a sweet chocolate coating on top?”

Wow! And just like that, my self-awareness blew open.

I Samuel 16:7 flooded into my mind. “…the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Am I truly sweet inside? Is there a gentle and a quiet spirit in there or is there a giant weed of bitterness, fighting to find a crack in the chocolate coating of the external me?

Hello conviction!

Which posed the question: “How do you get rid of a weed?”

Have you ever tried to uproot horseradish? It’s the hardest plant to "exterminate" that I have encountered yet. Pulling off the top is useless. Digging out a bit (or even all but one tiny, buried piece) of root is equally useless. You need to get a shovel and dig a HUGE hole around the root leaving absolutely no trace or it will come back in full force.

Just like bitterness. The smallest fragment rapidly grows into a mammoth heart issue. 

Here is my problem: There are reasons for the bitterness growing inside of me. There are roots that I don’t even want to remember because it will hurt too much. If it was up to me, I would poke around in there and do a dainty (and ultimately ineffective) job of uprooting the weeds.

But, the good news, the GREAT news, is that I’m not the Head Gardener of my heart. I’m a caretaker, but not the Gardener. There is only One who can dig out the bitterness and He is such a gentle Gardener that I can trust my heart (and those scary roots) to His weeding. 

In time, I'm believing that (at the hands of the good Gardener) all of the trusting, yielding, waiting, tongue-holding, and thought guarding will result in a delicious caramel (or perhaps coconut since that's my favorite!) filling instead of the bitter weed that’s growing in there now.

Goodbye horseradish, hello Quality Street!
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:14-19)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thank-you for posting this Lacie! It really hit home.
August 15, 2013 at 9:04 AM
Simply Thriving said…
Thanks for reading it, Loni!

September 6, 2013 at 8:48 AM
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